Seniors Menu

Last week I had dinner at the East Malvern RSL and it was oddly reminiscent of dinners at my Nanna's house when I was young. The bistro was small and cosy, everything smelt like roast vegetables and gravy and the room was about 2 degrees warmer than was really necessary - just like my Nanna's house always is. I couldn't shake the feeling that my Nanna was going to walk in with a roast leg of lamb on a large platter and start dishing up enormous plates of food.

The entire menu read a little like a Seniors menu would, with items like 'Lambs fry & bacon' and 'roast of the day' - although oddly enough, there was actually a seniors menu as well. I've never been anywhere before where Lambs Fry made it onto the regular menu instead of the seniors menu.

The meals were very good and they did actually turn out be like home cooking. To be honest the food was probably better than it ever was at Nanna's place. The reason for this is not because she is a bad cook - she's not at all. No, the reason is because as my grandfather got older, it became harder for him to taste things and in order to stem the flow of complaints from him, Nanna would add large quantities of miscellaneous seasoning to her recipes to 'bring out the flavour'. It never stopped the complaints, of course, but it did make for some interesting tasting food. It was never enough seasoning for my Grandad, and he used to put all sorts of extra stuff in his food to give it more flavour.

During one very memorable meal, he complained loudly that the Chicken soup had no flavour, so he added salt, then pepper - but still no flavour. He added Worcestershire sauce - still no flavour. He added tomato sauce - still no flavour. He then proceeded to add a large scoop of Vegemite. At this point the chicken soup was a strange brownish black colour, and he had run short of strange things to add in order to increase the flavour. He had to content himself with putting his toasted sandwich into his soap and eating it all in one big sloppy, black, soupy mess. I guess the theory was that if you put enough kinds of food into one mouthful, you'll eventually be able to taste it, no matter how dull your sense of taste has become. I think i'll give it a go with tomorrows dinner. It could be interesting...